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Days like these, I really hate computers.
By Chris | October 17, 2007
Today I decided that after I got off work at 0700, I would stop by the fire department, pick up one of the new computers, and install it at our other station out in the sticks. It was to be connected to the main station down here in civilization via VPN where it would connect with the server. Only now there’s a problem: there is no more server. Well, technically there is the sleek black box that one would call a server, however it’s more like a sleek black box with about 460GB of corrupted or otherwise inaccessible data on it.
It started innocently enough, you know, rebooting it, like I do once every couple weeks or so. And then… BSOD. Reboot again. BSOD. Shut down, let it sit, power it back up, stare at the screen, reboot again… BSOD. Curse and yell at it. BSOD. Google the error code. Nothing useful. Reboot. BSOD. Reboot. BSOD.
Last resort: reinstall W2K Advanced Server. Slip the disc in, boot the computer and it goes into its setup. Attempt to repair Windows installation.
Windows Setup cannot find any previous installations of Windows on this computer.
WTF? There was a copy on it about 15 minutes ago before the first BSOD.
Reboot. Same error. Only slightly more disappointing than BSOD. Well, worse comes to worse after much contemplating and more research online, and I decide, well….shit. I reboot it again, and attempt to do a clean install into a partition on one of the three drives that I know does not have any relevant data on it (I used it to store downloaded installation files, as well as some other things that were not terribly important).
Windows cannot be installed on this partition. Return to partition setup, select a compatible partition and try again.
Or something to that effect. I tried it again, and again and again. No dice. It said it was unformatted. It was clearly formatted about an hour ago now (note the progression of time here, as it was about 1000 at this point). What’s even worse is that I had one 200GB EIDE drive, with four partitions, and two 80GB SATA drives with a single partition. So I had six drives, C, D, E, F, X and Y. Windows was (or so I thought?) on C. I immediately thought about our fire reporting software and its location on the computer. C. Crap. Shit. That one is apparently gone. Oh! The backup! In my wisdom I had set the program to backup its database to a separate physical drive! X or Y! What are the odds of two totally separate physical drives fucking up? Apparently pretty good. Or just good enough, in this case.
I load up an emergency boot CD I have that runs a Linux shell and would allow me to at least access the files and know that they are there, safe and all backed up. I knew it had backed up because I saw the backup log last night, and it had completed with no errors (like it usually does). No dice. Can’t find the backups.
I slave the Y drive to another computer. Unformatted…would you like to format Y: now? NO! Though deep down inside I fear it’s already gone. I slave X. Files are on it, it works, yet there is no backups. Just backups from previous installations before the upgrade of the fire reporting software. In a last ditch effort to save my sanity (and stress level), I slave the EIDE drive (C/D/E/F) to another computer. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Not a damned thing. It says the whole mofo is unformatted. 200GB of platters with nothing useful on them. I call the software company, whom we pay a fat chunk of change for a service contract - they’ve always provided us with excellent service. They state that the only copies of the data would be in the installation folder on the server (C drive), and wherever the backups were saved (you know, on the Y drive!). I re-slave all the drives again to look for the files that aren’t there, just in case they were hiding in some hidden folder I missed. No dice.
I resign myself to the fact that the last 4-5 years of fire reports and other miscellaneous data….is gone.
I stress out, call Eric, because I need someone to vent to. It’s a case of freak computer retardation. It’s 1215 and I’ve been up 21 hours….I have to get some sleep before my brain goes the way of the disk drives. I notified the fire chief, who I’m sure will be displeased but there’s not so much I can do about it…
I never did get to install that computer up at the other fire station.
Topics: Fire Dept |
One Response to “Days like these, I really hate computers.”
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October 17th, 2007 at 1513
Try slaving and running CHKDSK — I’ve actually taken a drive that says it was unformatted and was able to recover a great deal of data from it. Good luck!